Strain Gauge

By,
Sandip Nair
sandipnair06@yahoo.com
sandipnair.hpage.com
 What is strain gauge?

• Principle: - Change in resistance of metallic wire

in response to strain produced
• It is used to sense the mechanical strain produced
on a body
• Strain gauge converts mechanical strain into
electrical signal
• The strain produced is converted into equivalent
change in resistance, capacitance or charge
 Classification
According to the type: - Types of strain gauges: -
• Resistance (all metals) • Bonded
• Semiconductor • Unbonded
• Capacitive • Blended metal foil
• Piezoelectric • Thin metal film by vacuum
deposition
• Thin metal film by sputter
deposition
 Unbonded Strain Gauge

• Unbonded strain gauge consists of a piece of wire

stretched in a multiple folds between a pair or more
insulated pins fixed to a movable members of a body
or even a single flexible member when strained, the
wire also gets strained
• These are used in preloaded conditions not to allow
the ‘strings’ to go to slack. Materials used- Cu-Ni, Cr-
Ni or Ni-Fe
• Gauge factor : 2 to 4
 Bonded Strain Gauge
Bonded type is the simplest form consists of wire/ strip
of resistance arrangement in grid

E = Em

E = actual strain
Em= measured strain
 Bonded Strain Gauge

Types of bonded strain gauge: -

• Flat grid type
• Wrap around type
• Woven type
 Resistance

• It is the obstruction produced on the movement

of electron for the potential difference applied
across the conductor
• The resistance of a material is given by: -

Where = resistivity of material

l = length of the material
A = Circular cross sectional area of the
material of diameter “d”
 Derivation for gauge factor

Differentiating w.r.t. stress σ: -

Dividing by
 Derivation continued…
A = πd2 As it is a circular cross section

But,
Strain = Poisson’s ratio =

Thus,
 Derivation continued…

Gauge Factor =
 Reference
• Sensors and Transducers - D. Patranabis (page-18)